638 VENEZUELA. 



to open as the sun declines, and bloom during the night, shed- 

 ding a delicious fragrance, and offering their brimful goblets, 

 filled with nectareous juice, to thousands of moths and other 

 crepuscular and nocturnal insects/' as Gosse describes it. 



The splendid mammey apple-tree (Mammea Americana), 

 which bears numbers of round and heavy fruits, brown out- 

 side, and of a golden yellow within, valued for the marma- 

 lades and other delicacies formed from them. 



Of the same family as the chirimoya is the guanabana 

 (Anona muricata), or sour sop, an unattractive name for so 

 delicious a fruit. From it a cooling drink is made, and ices 

 of fine flavour. 



A near relative is the custard apple, filled with a ruddy 

 compounded substance, which no cook can surpass. As also 

 the rinon (Anona squamosa), a kidney-like fruit in form, with 

 a custard-like interior. 



The superb alligator-pear, more properly called percia 

 gratissima ; its first name given probably from its being 

 indigenous to a country abounding in saurian reptiles, other- 

 wise it is difficult to account for its inappropriate designation. 

 It resembles in shape a large pear ; but the interior of its 

 rind is lined with a marrow-like substance of a yellowish 

 colour, somewhat like butter, and used at the breakfast-table. 



Among other products is the tamarind, unrivalled either 

 as regards beauty of foliage, brilliancy of blossoms, or the 

 delicacy of its acidulous pulpy pods. In blossom the tree is 

 a lovely object. Amid its feathery dark green foliage issue, in 

 vast numbers, golden yellow branches with delicate flowers 

 dazzling to the eye ; while its fruits in a green state form a 

 candied sweetmeat, or when ripe, and made into a decoction, 

 a refreshing drink for fever-stricken patients. 



